2004-2005 Theatre Company Season!

Parting words from outgoing Dean John Staudenmaier, S.J.

On
June 30, I will end three years as interim dean of the College of Liberal
Arts and Education. Dr. Charles Marske, who shows every sign of being a wonderful
new dean, will begin settling into the dean’s office in Briggs on July
1.

What has me writing this column are some rumors about why I am not continuing
as dean—some people heard that I don't like the job; some that I've
decided to leave UDM after 23 plus years here, leave permanently; I even heard
that I'd gotten fired. None of those rumors are accurate.

To explain my decision I need to start with St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded
us Jesuits four centuries ago. Ignatius said that when we make an important
decision we should pray until we are “choosing the greater good.”
So if you find that you are choosing the lesser of two evils (i.e., damage
control), you have not gone far enough in your prayer. Put another way, a
good decision should leave you both happy and sad—happy because you
have found the next step for your life, sad because you cannot live the other
good possibilities you also see. That happened in my prayer a year ago when
I decided to ask the University to search for my successor.

I have found deep joy working as dean because I work with a spectacular administrative
team in Briggs, Reno, and on Outer Drive; because I am so proud of our faculty
and our students. UDM students come from everywhere; you cannot study here
with a fantasy that everyone in the world is just like you. We—staff,
faculty, students—are realists about the way the world is. I love this
place! Joy, too, because I am so at home with the other deans and the vice
presidents and the president. I have told many people over the last couple
years that UDM’s leadership is extraordinary—smart, creative,
committed—and fun to work with. I will miss every part of this job.

My challenge has been that I have not just been a dean. I am also the editor
of an international journal, Technology and Culture. We publish research written
by scholars from around the world, men and women who study the way technologies
are related to their host societies. We make the claim that every article
is honest scholarship (that you could check any footnote and find evidence
for what the author says). That takes a lot of work. It is also what I have
for 25 years believed to be my main calling in this world, the history of
technology. It has been hard to find the time to be the editor and the dean
at the same time. I also have a contract with MIT Press to write the second
edition of a book that came out in 1985: Technology's Storytellers: Reweaving
the Human Fabric. It’s still in print and 20 years out of date.

Sometime in August, I'll pack my Ford Focus with some stuff and drive to
California. For the next academic year, I will be a scholar-in-residence at
Santa Clara University, helping the new director of the Science, Technology,
and Society Center chart the future of that Center and working on a second
edition of Storytellers. Now and then I'll be back around campus—first
for Fr. Stockhausen’s inauguration as president on October 1. Then in
summer of 2005, I will drive the Focus back across the Rockies and settle
in at Six Mile and Livernois.

I plan to be around UDM for a long time, and I am looking forward to getting
back to the 10:00 p.m. (20 minute) mass in Shiple on Monday and Wednesday
nights. In the meantime, I will miss this place, even though I am thrilled
to get the chance to dig deeper in my scholarly profession. Deciding, says
St. Ignatius, means choosing between goods. When I am sad as I drive away
in August, I will be grateful for my sadness. And I’ll feel very much
like a Jesuit.